There are two things that have always haunted me: the brutality of the European traders and the stories I've heard about Africans selling other Africans into slavery.
Henry Louis GatesRead
The only people who live in a post-black world are four people who live in a little white house on Pennsylvania Avenue. The idea that America is post-racial or post-black because a man I admire, Barack Obama, is president of the United States, is a joke. And I hope no one will even wonder about this crazy fiction again.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the notion of a post-racial America, emphasizing that societal issues of race and identity persist despite the election of a Black president.
Henry Louis Gates argues against the optimistic belief that America has moved beyond racial issues simply because Barack Obama, a Black man, became president. He highlights that this notion is naive and dismisses the ongoing struggles related to race and identity, suggesting that the complexities of racial dynamics cannot be simplified by one individual’s achievements. Gates implies that the term 'post-black' undermines the continued relevance of racial identity and the realities faced by many in America.
Themes
RaceIdentityPoliticsObamaPost-RacialSociety
In practice
Example use cases
In a panel discussion about race relations in America, this quote could be used to emphasize ongoing challenges despite perceived progress.
More from Henry Louis Gates
All quotes →It's not white versus black any more, it's haves versus have-nots. Unless the black middle-classes unite to promote the interests of the black underclass, tension between them is inevitable. What we, the black middle class have to do, is think of a strategy to avert that.
Henry Louis GatesRead
In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it.
Henry Louis GatesRead
In fact, the class divide in the black community is now seen by some as a permanent aspect of our existence.
Henry Louis GatesRead
The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending discrimination, by itself, would not eradicate black poverty and dysfunction. We also need intervention to promulgate a middle-class ethic of success among the poor, while expanding opportunities for economic betterment.
Henry Louis GatesRead
Very few, if any, first-generation black or white or Asian kids will pursue a Ph.D. They'll pursue the professions for economic security. Many will go to law school and/or business school.
Henry Louis GatesRead
Similar quotes
You too must not count too much on your reality as you feel it today, since like yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow.
Luigi PirandelloRead
This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one's will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence.War is god.
Cormac MccarthyRead
In a jump, the subject, in a sudden burst of energy, overcomes gravity. He cannot simultaneously control his expressions, his facial and his limb muscles. The mask falls. The real self becomes visible. One only has to snap it with the camera.
Philippe HalsmanRead
You don't need a Harvard MBA to know that the bedroom and the boardroom are just two sides of the same ballgame.
Stephen FryRead
Footballers' 'lack of loyalty,' for instance, is not an indication of players' moral delinquency. Instead, the capacity to move on quickly without forming lasting attachments is a skill that the contemporary capitalist world inculcates and relies upon.
Mark FisherRead
I believe the moral losses of expediency always far outweigh the temporary gains.
Wendell WillkieRead